Spanish Unit For The Silver Bayonet

I haven't posted anything for over three weeks, but I have been busy, mostly working on Napoleonic Spanish types. First up, is my Spanish unit for The Silver Bayonet, a set of rules for Gothic Horror during the Napoleonic Wars. There are eight figures in total.

These four above are the more "regular" troops, an Artilleryman, an Officer, an Infantryman and a Sapper. Below are four "irregular" types, a Guerrilla, a Veteran Hunter, a Champion of the Faith and a Swordsman. All these eight labels have specific meanings within the rules.

The figures are from the official range of figures produced by North Star and I have to say that they are excellent sculpts with lots of character and nice details. I decided when painting them that I wasn't going to get too bothered over making them specific to any particular Spanish units of the period. After all, it is basically a fantasy game, although some of these could be used in historical Peninsular War games, probably as characters or specialists for Sharp Practice, although they are quite chunky and on the large size compared with Perry figures, for example.

Anyway, I now finally have a force to use for games of The Silver Bayonet. I'll have to find time to paint up the French and British sets at some point.

My last three SYW infantry battalions

I've finally nearly everything done for my Honours of War project, apart from the cavalry. Here are my last three infantry battalions;

Overall, I am pretty happy with what I've done with this army so far. Even without cavalry it is a pretty reasonable force. It would certainly suffice for most games of Honours of War.

I'll be working on the cavalry over the rest of September and into October, but for the moment I will be concentrating on a 28mm Austrian Napoleonic project that I really should have got on with last year. 

Allied infantry battalions for my 15mm SYW project

The Grand Duchy of Überwald's army usually includes allied units.

These two battalions represent troops recruited in the Margravate of Streslau. The current Grand Duke, Carl Emanuel III was the Margrave of Streslau before succeeding his father, Carl Emanuel II to the title several years ago. Streslau has been a feudal vassal of Überwald since the 16th century and provides well-respected and stubborn infantry to the Ducal Army.

The infantry regiments of Streslau wear green uniforms and their standards are distinguished by the yellow Cross of St Alberich, the patron saint of Streslau.

Guns and limbers for my SYW project

Here is the artillery for my SYW imagi-nation for Honours of War;

Above we have the limbered guns for movement before or after deployment and below I have placed a cannon on one of the artillery bases I finished a while ago, to show how the deployed guns will appear on the table. I think this has come out rather well.

I have also finished off the rest of my infantry battalions, but I will do a separate post about these.

Lots more recruits for my 15mm SYW forces

Apart from when it has been too hot to paint, I have been continuing my Honours of War project. First, two battalions of line musketeers and a brigadier;

Next a battalion of the Grand Duke's Garde zu Fuß and the army commander;

Note that these guys have blue uniforms. It is annoying that the general and his ADC are a bit blurred but I can't be bothered to retake the photo.

Thirdly, here are the rest of my brigadiers, probably more than I'll ever need in most games;

Note that I've done a couple in green coats. This is because I want to have the possibility of grouping all the Freikorps light infantry into a single brigade and also because I have decided that senior officers in the army of the Grand Duchy of Überwald should have considerable freedom in what they can wear on the battlefield.

My last picture shows four bases of artillerymen;

These are awaiting their guns, which I intend to be freestanding so that I can attach them to limbers until they are deployed. I have decided that the Überwald should also wear a similar blue uniform to that of the Ducal Guards because the Großherzog is a great believer in the importance of artillery.

I am currently working on the remaining five foot battalions and then I will start on the guns and limbers for the artillery. That will leave me with the cavalry units and then, perhaps, the army will be complete. Maybe not, though, because I would like to create a separate Freikorps containing line troops, skirmishers, artillery and some cavalry, so that I could field them in certain scenarios. It wouldn't be a massive force, maybe two or three battalions of line, one of skirmishers, one artillery battery and a single unit of dragoons.

A new project - SYW 15mm troops

This project is something I had no idea I was going to do at the beginning of the year, but a few people at the club were getting interested in the Honours Of War rules from Osprey and were using SYW armies that they either already had or were putting together. I played a couple of games and, although I have some reservations about the rules, I decided that they weren't too bad and I ought to put an army together too.

The rules allow for the use of imagi-nations, which is something that I am very much in favour of because it takes me back to Charles Grant and his wars between the Vereinigte Freie Städte and the Grand Duchy of Lorraine in his classic book, The War Game.

My project is to create the army (in our chosen scale of 15mm) of the Grand Duchy of Überwald (a name that will be familiar to Terry Pratchett fans), a long vanished entity from somewhere near Austria. 

The rules in the book uses infantry battalions made up of five elements, but because some players have battalions of four elements, we have agreed on this for our campaign, which is supposed to begin in the autumn. We are also reducing cavalry squadrons by one element too, to keep frontages in proportion. 

Our campaign will be using a blend of real and imaginary states, so long as the imaginary armies have the characteristics of the real ones in the book.

The Grand Duchy of Überwald's army will be using Essex Prussian minis and will be based on the rule book stats for Austria.  As you can see, their flags will look rather French too.

So far, I have completed two battalions of Grenadiers and three of light troops, as pictured above. My plan is to have ten battalions of infantry, three of light troops (most likely a Freikorps) and seven squadrons of cavalry of various types, plus medium artillery and a number of brigadiers and an army commander. I expect that my imagination will run away with me and I end up with a few more units.

To provide a nice colourful appearance I will paint up some infantry in colours other than grey. There will be a battalion of Garde zu Fuß musketeers in blue and two more battalions in green, representing troops from the Margravate of Streslau, a feudal vassal of Überwald. There will also be artillerymen, cuirassiers (including one of Garde zu Pferde), dragoons and hussars in a variety of uniforms.

I am going to have to work quickly. I also have a 28mm Austrian Napoleonic project that I need to finish by November. So far, everything is assembled, based up and undercoated.

Black Ops Special Forces

This was a rush job, because I wanted to be able to use them at the club tomorrow (31st July).

 These are from the Copplestone Future Wars range. Five of them, the ones with hoods are the Hostage Rescue Squad and the other two (the commander with a cap and the trooper with a helmet and assault rifle) are from the Assault Troopers sets.

I want to use these as the kind of Special Forces stealth operatives who can infiltrate secret bases, armed compounds or clandestine installations, do the job and get out quickly. 

Their paint job is essentially all about shades of grey which make them hard to see in the dark or in the kind of tunnels and passageways beloved of film and TV whenever Black Ops are part of the plot. Even their weapons are matt grey.

Anyway, I hope that they will work for the game that Clive, one of our club members is running tomorrow. 

I will also be able to use these for the Black Ops rules written by Guy Bowers, which are published by Osprey.

All Quiet On The Blogging Front

I haven't really been doing much wargaming related stuff for the last couple of weeks or so, although I have started prepping up figures for some early 2021 projects, including my Bad Squiddo Onna Bugeisha minis which I have had sitting around for ages and ages. I felt guilty every time I saw them in the box where I keep my (supposed) priority To Do stuff. Anyway, they are now glued onto 2.5cm round MDF bases and primed in Halford's matt grey undercoat spray.

I have also started to prep up another project, this time in 15mm, which I shall keep secret for a while, because it is something of a personal trip down memory lane, in many ways, but it did require me to get onto eBay and buy some old rulebooks from more than two decades ago.

I also took advantage of the Foundry Christmas price reduction offer and bought some minis from their Seadogs and Swashbucklers range. A few of us from the club put in a single order, to maximise the discount, which was nice. The plan is for these to make up bands for Osprey's En Garde rules, or anything else that seems suitable, for that matter.

I also bought a couple of Geek Villain wargaming mats in the Black Friday sale, the first time I've ever done such a thing. I got a grassy one, which is useful for everything, pretty much, and a cobblestone one, which will be good for all manner of urban settings. I am primarily thinking of In Her Majesty's Name here, but Frostgrave seems another possibility too. I have the Frostgrave 2nd edition book on my Christmas list too, so I am looking forward to that.

Anyway, it is the run-in to Christmas now, so I am going to be pretty busy with getting the food and wine ready, getting out the Christmas tablecloth and table mats and other festive bits 'n' pieces. Tomorrow, I'll be off to the butcher for the meat , which means boning, stuffing and tying up the chicken, poaching a bacon joint (for glazing on Boxing Day), making stock from the chicken carcass and making a chocolate and lime baked cheesecake ready for Christmas dessert. and then it will be Christmas eve. when I must go to the baker to get our bread order collected, and also get whatever I have forgotten about until now.

Orangenland - a 17th century imagi-nation

 A couple of years ago, I received The Pikeman's Lament rules as a Christmas present. I liked the idea of using the rules for a Thirty Years' War project, originally planning to use the really nice Peter Pig ECW 15mm figures, with multiple figures on bases to make each unit look bigger, but I later thought about doing it in 28mm instead. I like the look of the Warlord Pike and Shotte figures, especially the plastic boxed sets. I worked out that I could probably put a nice starter army together from a single box of infantry and one of cavalry.

Anyway, to do a project, I would need some context, a backstory for the troops. So, I invented a North-western German state, the Duchy of Orangenland.

Orangenland is made up of three separate territories which were once feudal possessions of the House of Chalon-Arnay, which acquired the title to the Principality of Orange in the late 14th century. Sometime after 1500, the lands passed into the hands of an illegitimate son of the House of Chalon-Arnay. This son, Philibert of Orangenstadt, became a soldier of fortune in the armies of Emperor Charles V, who ennobled him as Herzog von Orangen, uniting the three Kreise of Orangenstadt, Orangenwald and Orangenburg into the Duchy of Orangenland.

Although Philibert was a Catholic, his son  Karl Adolph adopted the Lutheran religion in the 1540s, and the Duchy adopted Lutheranism following the 1555 Peace of Augsburg. Herzog Karl I died in 1584, leaving his son Karl Christoph as Herzog.

Orangenland remained a minor North German state, known mainly for brewing and pork products. Orangen Weissbier was and still is famous as far away as Ruritania The local wine made from the Elbling grape variety is, occasionally, drinkable.

The wine of Orangenland is the main reason why the ruling House of Orangen was an early investor in distilling. Orangenweinbrand is a much more popular drink than most of the wine produced in the Duchy, and is even exported to places as far away as Syldavia and the Duchy of Strackenz.

So, in 1618 on the eve of the terrible Thirty Years' War. Orangenland was a peaceful backwater, but Karl Christoph, Herzog von Orangen had grand expansionist designs and aspired to military glory. Unfortunately, his ambitions were greater than his Treasury permitted and he soon became heavily in debt and became unable to pay off his mercenary general, Willem van Metwoorst, who refused to leave the Duchy with his army unless the money he was owed was forthcoming. Karl Christoph's unscrupulous younger brother Georg Wilhelm had long harboured designs to replace his brother, and to that end began negotiations with several banking houses so that he could borrow enough money to buy the loyalty of Captain van Metwoorst for himself, and then arrange an accident for Karl.

Following the unfortunate hunting accident, Herzog Georg Wilhelm gained an alliance with the United Provinces, claiming an almost completely non-existent but artfully constructed familial relationship between the House of Orange-Nassau and the House of Orangen. This helped smooth the path between the Orangenland Treasury and the banking houses of Antwerp and Amsterdam.

Willem van Metwoorst, was granted the title of Captain General of Orangenland and the army became organised along Dutch lines. From the late 1620s onwards, the Swedish King, Gustavus sent military aides to the Duchy and Scottish recruits began to swell the ranks of the army. A stout defender of the Protestant religion, Georg Wilhelm deftly managed to steer a path between his somewhat dissolute and murky private life and the sterner demands of his professed faith.

So, there is the introduction to Orangenland, its ambitious Herzog and his hard-bitten Captain General Willem van Metwoorst. I shall return to the Duchy again in the future.